Santa Barbara is set against the Santa Ynez Mountains and home to many film stars; it’s a place where properties can go for more than $100 million by multiple accounts. The property is located on a private road in a luxury estate in Montecito, where every house in the neighbourhood is designed for privacy, with long driveways and large gates.
Meghan Markle and Prince Harry have gone exceptionally grand with their California starter house, purchasing a $14.65 million estate in the heart of posh Montecito, the seaside Santa Barbara County enclave that is famously home to a slew of Hollywood heavyweights.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex’ names do not appear on grant deeds related to the property — records show the estate quietly sold in mid-June to a mysterious trust with a deliberately opaque name, though the trust happens to share a mailing address with the offices of Meghan Markle’s longtime Hollywood business manager.
Public documents also reveal the buyers secured a $9.5 million mortgage to acquire the 7.4-acre compound, which is securely tucked away on a private, gated street. Despite the unquestionably hefty pricetag, it could be argued Meghan and Harry scored the property at a discount of sorts ;
The seller, low-profile Russian businessman Sergey Grishin, acquired the estate in 2009 for $25.3 million and had attempted to sell it many times over the past decade before finally accepting a $10 million-plus financial loss.
Built in 2003, the Mediterranean-style main house includes a trove of beige and off-white decor, plus a library, gym, separate wet and dry saunas, an elevator, arcade, game room and home theater. There’s also a detached guesthouse with two bedrooms and bathrooms; altogether, the estate boasts nearly 19,000 square feet of living space with a total of 9 bedrooms and a whopping 16 bathrooms.
Dated listings note that the property additionally offers a “tea house,” a “children’s cottage,” and exceptionally beautiful manicured grounds that boast tiered rose gardens, century-old olive trees, and tall Italian cypress trees that likely cost a small fortune to maintain.
A full-size tennis court, lap-lane swimming pool, and a notably elaborate built-in children’s playset are among the numerous other outdoor amenities.
Meghan and Harry, who first moved stateside in early 2020, previously resided in a fortified compound owned by Tyler Perry, whom they met through mutual friend Oprah Winfrey.
Montecito may be located a full two hours northwest of downtown L.A. by car, but celebrities have flocked to the area in recent years — the neighborhood’s laid-back and mostly paparazzi-free atmosphere provides a welcome retreat from the hectic hustle of Hollywood and its surrounding environs.
Current area residents include Gwyneth Paltrow, Ellen DeGeneres, Ariana Grande, and — perhaps most famously — Oprah Winfrey herself, whose nearly 70-acre “Promised Land” compound qualifies as one of Southern California’s most lavish estates.
https://variety.com/2020/
Santa Barbara in California
